Wednesday Kickaround

*If D.C. United plans to acquire Honduran forward Walter Martinez, it will have to do business with Marathon, which owns his contract despite the fact that he's been playing for a club in Beijing. The agent handling Martinez's MLS pursuits is also representing Honduran national team defender Victor Bernardez, 26, who is being wooed by Los Angeles. I'm told a deal with the Galaxy could very well be struck as early as Dec. 12 when talks will take place in Honduras.

*Remember Andrew Jacobson, the Cal midfielder drafted by D.C. last winter who signed in France instead? Here's an update. (Make note of the final paragraph.)

*And so the scheduling conflicts begin: The second weekend of the MLS season (March 28) is the same as the second matchday of final-round CONCACAF World Cup qualifying when the USA visits El Salvador, Honduras goes to T&T and Mexico hosts Costa Rica. National teams will remain together for another qualifier April 1. There are four MLS games on March 28, one on April 2.

Return is possible - but he's doing just fine there to me shows you that the young talent is not stocking the bottom of an MLS roster but would rather learn a foreign language in order to pull a paycheck.

Sounds awesome. Maybe we'll have two Catrachos missing time with United this year instead of just one.
We're doomed. The sky is falling. Might as well just write off the 09 season already...
Thanks for the heads up on the matches Goff! Got my wisdom teeth out on Monday, and that link to the Aspiring Dentist sure didn't help me forget;-(
Stoked to see some football this afternoon though:-)

You could watch on ESPN360, if you have the right ISP account, operating system and firewall combos. So yeah, probably not.
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I've used ESPN360 on three different laptops using three different OSs (Vista, XP, and Mac) using Explorer and Firefox, with no problems.

While the schedule thing remains a problem, it's a relatively nice problem to have. Teams that don't have any national team talent aren't likely to do too well in MLS, either.

Thanks for the link to the Jacobson profile, Goff. Seems like one determined player -- not unlike our own Ben Olsen. Sorry to learn about his terrible injury. I've been there, done that with the ACL and broken ankle. That he's back, even for scrimmages at that level, is a real tribute to the kid.

I'm sure he'd prefer to play in Europe, but I'd still like to see him here. I'm sure he'd be a fan favorite.

So, why does the play in MLS continue to be so plodding, compared with other professional leagues?

I would be somewhat surprised to see Victor 'Muma' Bernardez go to LA. Muma is massive presence in the back with wicked foot, very capable of scoring. He had some trials in Europe (eg Birmingham), but I guess he is desperate to leave Motagua.

I don't know what the discovery rules are, but maybe DCU could offer the agent a two-fer package? I recall being impressed with Bernardez....I'm afraid that DC sets its sights too low. There are definitely some really talented Central and South Americans who'd like to play here.

It's kinda funny that Jacobson played in the Futsal World Cup as part as his rehab from injury.

Not on TV in our area but - depending on your luck and what you can get away with on a Wednesday afternoon - you may be able to find a livestream webcast of Oguchi Onyewu's Standard Liege playing Sampdoria in the UEFA Cup at 245 pm. Standard only needs a point at home to clinch advancement to the next stage.

DCU has not done badly (that I can recall) with the Honduran Internationals that we have obtained. Since World Cup 82 in Spain when the quality of Honduran players was really first recognized, catrachos have been playing for clubs large and small around the world. If they can get some decent goalkeeping in the hexogonal - watch out, they are skilled and very quick. We saw how Marthon completely outplayed us in the CCL. The National team will need to find a way to beat Costa Rica which has always been difficult for them.

I would think that for Peterson to become a fan favorite he'd have to put in a lot of work. He did, after all, turn us down pretty coldly last year. I mean, if I ask a woman out and she says "Nah, you're not as good as that guy over there", I wouldn't exactly jump for joy if she came back a year later and said "Uh, so, maybe you aren't so bad, perhaps?"

sbg1:

Somehow, I don't think Marathon beating our reserves is analogous to the situation between the US and Honduras in the Hex. Last time I checked, we don't have any US internationals seeing most of their game time at the RFK Auxiliary Field...or at RFK, for that matter (ouch). I'm not saying Honduras is weak (I have them beating Costa Rica to the 3rd qualification spot), but using Marathon's success against us is a big stretch.

"Fischy-
"Teams that don't have any national team talent aren't likely to do too well in MLS, either."
Ouch. I'm not sure if that's exactly accurate. "
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Agree with Redskinsux - actually having MNT players in a World cup year (or during a heavy qualifiying period) can hurt the team - DCU wasn't the same in 2006 with all the time Olsen was away.

Then again, DC reached the MLS Cup final in 98 with Goose, Pope, and Wegerle (but not Harkes) in France. We missed them and a number of foreign internationals in 97 due to qualifiers. Anyone else remember thinking "Gee, Kris Kelderman is starting."

Considering that Peterson wasn't an Olympian and likely would have been used no more often than Vide was (very different players, but bear with me), I'd say we're not exactly talking about a Victoria's Secret model. Respectable, but somewhere short of spectacular, how's that?

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Gooch scores, Standard is up 3-0 and looks like they might be able to make some noise in the knockout stages.

Not to belabor a point, but if that's the example, then I win. DC won the Supporters' Shield in '06. They obviously did well enough when they had Olsen in the lineup to make up for any fall-off when he wasn't. DC had a bunch of players who had seen time with national teams (or, in the case of Perkins, would get a callup later)(Moreno, Olsen, Boswell, Carroll, Simms, Eskandarian, Adu, Namoff, Gros, Rimando, Perkins -- I'm probably missing some).

The point is that if you don't have any players of that caliber, you don't have a very good team

Hopefully the pic won't change but it might since it's just part of CNN's UEFA Cup round-up. Anyway, his team Standard Liege impressively beat Sampdoria 3-0 to advance to the UEFA Cup knockout stages sometime early next year (Gooch will almost certainly be playing elsewhere).